


I Know You Don't Believe Me

by orphan_account



Category: Unwind Dystology
Genre: Angst, Gen, Suicide Attempt, lol idk im a sadist, there's really no point in tagging this because its gonna be the only one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-06 12:00:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1106562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connor is awoken in the middle of the night with some troubling news.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Know You Don't Believe Me

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah there was a pitiful lack of fiction in this fandom, no matter how small, no excuse. So anyways I wrote something so at least we'll have a tag on AO3. This takes place between Unwholly and Unwind. Also, the title doesn't have much to do with the fic, but it is in the chorus of a song that I think matches it well. It's called Old Friend by Sea Wolf, if you want to check it out.  
> Also, we're automatic friends if oyu can say who I named Hayden's parents after.

Connor tried his best to stave off annoyance as he was forced from a deep murky sleep by a procession of sharp knocks on the door to his jet.  He reminded himself with a sigh before opening the door, that being woken in the middle of the night is just another price of leadership.  At the top of the stairs stood two young, finicky looking guards, who Connor distinctly remembered putting on patrol duty for the first time that night.  They stared at each other for a few long seconds, neither knowing what to say, before Connor broke the silence saying

"Yes?"

They both looked at each other, and mumbled briefly.  One, the shorter of the two, then lifted up a bottle of vodka, and held it straight out for Connor to take.

"Um, thanks?"  Said Connor, half sarcastically.

Connor took it in his hands, and looked questioningly at the two guards.  The taller one, with the black emo bangs which had grown too long, reached in his pocket quickly and pulled out an orange prescription pill bottle.  With the realization of having to explain the situation,  Emo's eyes lit up behind his veil of hair.

"Uh, we confiscated these." Said Emo, casting his gaze downward.

Connor rose an eyebrow at them.  

"Um, you guys, I thought you were on fence patrol?"  Connor knew they shouldn't be searching anything, other than the horizons.  He wondered how they came across this stuff.

"We were." Blurted the shorter one.

"Then how..." Connor knitted his brow and cocked his head, in confusion.

"Um, oh!" The Emo said, waking up a second time, "A, uh, we caught someone trying to sneak out, so we took it from them."

Connor read the bottle's prescription, as Emo handed it to him.  It was ambien, most likely swiped from the infirmary.  Oh.  He thought, numbly.  He was uneasy with the idea of suicide.  He had little sympathy, or even time for thought, for the sad, sorry fools who became victims of their own fatal self pity, but he knew it was a problem which needed dealing with.

"Um..." Conner wasn't sure which question to ask first, "two questions. Who did you catch? Uh, and why didn't you bring them to me, like I asked?"

The boys looked at each other, and a brief expression of terror passed over their faces.  Connor crossed his arms, and prepared to hear whatever the goons had to say.  

"Well he uh-" the shorter one began, before a sharp elbow from his partner silenced him.

"We weren't supposed to say..." He hissed.

"Say what?" Connor projected, making the whole night jump.

The boys looked at each other, briefly before both casting their eyes downwards.  

"He told us..." Sighed the short one "He said he was allowed to-"

"But then I remembered that you didn't say anything about it, and we already saw the vodka so I wanted to search him and we found the pills -" Emo cut in.

"But then he said that he was...and uh...we...he's in bed now."  

Connor was incredulous.

"How?" He grimaced, while running his fingers through his hair.

"It made sense at the time." One of them said, quietly.

Connor looked back down at the contents in his hands, and shook his head.  He sighed.

"Just...just bring him like I asked you."  Connor sighed, turning back into the Jet. "And don't mess this up next time."

The boys shrugged at each other, before scurrying away to their fulfil their orders.

Connor turned on the lights  of his jet to keep from falling back asleep, while settling into one of the the swivel chairs he commonly sat in during meetings.  

He dwelt briefly on the fact that he should have called for Ashley instead of meeting with this possible mental case himself, but at the time it had felt more important to seem imposing upon the new guards.  Like he had reflected on earlier, sometimes leadership gets in the way of things, and you just have to let it.

The time drew out uncomfortably, and just before Connor was about to get up and find the guards himself, they knocked at his door again.  He pulled himself out of his chair and opened the door once more.  

He found himself face to face with Hayden who was smiling sheepishly, almost sickly.  The guards who stood behind him kept trying to assert themselves to the front, but he coolly kept them at bay.  

"Hayden, can it wait? I'm kind of in the middle of something."  Connor hissed, gesturing to the agitated kids behind him.

Hayden shrugged, letting an easy smile spread over his cheeks.

"Okay, whatever."  The words tumbled from his mouth sweetly, and with his cool demeanor returned, he managed to push past the guards and get half way down the stairs before the shorter guard exclaimed;

"But Connor!"

"What?" He snapped in return.

"You asked us to bring him!"

"I didn't ask you to bring Hayden I asked you to bring the kid who..." Connor trailed off, with a sudden sickening realization.  

He didn't believe it at first.  A mistake must have been made, surely?  Hayden wasn't like that.  Hayden wouldn't do these things.  He was clever and mature, he knew the score.  Hayden wasn't the type to fall into self pity and give up completely because of it.  There was no way he had tried to...was there?

Hayden was stalled halfway down the stairs.  Connor's eyes were glued to him.  After a minute or two Connor noticed that he had been shaking or convulsing.  It took him a few minutes to realize that he had been quietly snickering, out of amusement from the bumbling guards.

"Get out of here." Connor offhandedly demanded the guards, who apologized profusely, before slumping off to their long abandoned posts.

"So..." Hayden turned around slowly, "Does this mean I can go back to bed now?" He flashed a toothy smile.

The expression on his face was equal parts disgusting and terrifying to Connor.  He felt pure betrayal.  Hayden was his best friend.  It wasn't right, it wasn't fair for him to want to just clock out like this.  You don't do that, not to the people who need you.

"Get inside." Connor spat, motioning to his own jet, and Hayden began to ascend back up the stairs, obediently.

They sat in the places they'd usually sit during meetings, in comfortable spinning arm chairs across from one another, with a coffee table in between.

"You wanted to talk to me?" He gestured his palms outward in submission.

Connor's breathing was slow and controlled.  He looked his friend up and down in this new light.  He was slouching apathetically low in his seat, and playing absent mindedly with a loose string on his shirt.  It was disgusting, and Connor found himself scowling, hating everything about Hayden.

"What the hell, Hayden?" Connor said, sternly, boring holes in his friend with an icy gaze.

Hayden just laughed.

"You'll have to be more specific, dude." He grinned.

Connor picked the bottles off the shelf where he had left them.  While holding them out in front of him, he said;

"Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about."

"Oh! That!" Hayden exclaimed without missing a beat. "Uh, sorry." He rubbed his arm and grinned sheepishly.

Connor sat back down across him.  He felt the urge to lunge across the coffee table and choke Hayden to death. How dare he? Connor thought.  How dare he be so selfish, and then brush it all off.  How dare he act as if nothing happened, when he had almost erased himself from Connor's life that night.

"What were you doing?" Connor said, through gritted teeth.

Hayden just shrugged and made a noise as if to say "I don't know!".  With an insufferably cheery smile.

"Really?" Connor raised an eyebrow sarcastically, and incredulously "You don't know?"

"I mean I know.  It's not like I don't know.  I know but like..." He let himself trail off.

"Tell me what you were doing!" Connor shouted, losing the cool he had fought so hard to keep.

This shook Hayden quite a bit.  So much so that he snapped his legs off the coffee table and instinctively hugged them to his chest.  It was only seconds though, of pure emotion, before he lapsed back into his usual smirk.

"Calm down dude, okay.  I'll return the ambien and dunk the booze.  It'll all get worked out.  Don't have a heart attack!"  He laughed nervously.

"I don't care if the stuff gets put back."  Connor put his hand over his face and quickly pulled it away, in exhaustion.

Hayden looked at him in confusion and slight annoyance as of to say "then why am I here?".  Connor clenched his firsts and exhaled deeply.  He wanted to cut right to the point.  No more pussy footing around.

"Were you gonna eat a bunch of these and wash it down the this?"  Connor asked softly, gesturing to each bottle respectively.

Hayden hadn't even had time to analyze the question before his mind raced to find a witty response.

He snorted before snapping his fingers in Connor's direction.

"A ha!  Ya caught me!  I surrender!"  He croaked dramatically.  

"So you were trying to overdose on Ambien?" Connor inquired quickly.

"Ha ha, yeah I guess, so weird." Hayden mumbled in reply.

Connor had him right where he wanted him.

"Why the hell were you trying to kill yourself?" Connor said so softly, it was almost a whisper.

Hayden's expression glazed over, a deer in headlights.  Connor tried to give him time to come up with a response, but all he could muster was a long drawn out "because".  Connor couldn't hold his tongue any longer.

"I mean dammit, Hayden!" He snapped, gripping Hayden's hand so hard it caused him to wince, "Why would you do that?! Why would you do something so stupid?!  Something so...so...weak!  Is your life really that bad?  It's just!  Ugh!  What is wrong with you?"  He hadn't realized it, but during his rant he had been pulling Hayden closer and closer across the coffee table, and by the time he was done their faces were mere inches apart.

The tears that had been welling in Hayden's eyes finally broke.  With one hand he quickly moved to dry them and collect himself again.  As he tried, in vain, to regain his calm demeanor, he began to chuckle darkly.

"Jeez." The word was a struggle to get out, "you try to do everyone a favour and this is the thanks you get." He mumbled, failing to keep his voice level.

Connor immediately softened his grip and leaned back into his seat.  He felt a sort of awful confusion, like the way one does when they see their father cry.  Hayden wasn't supposed to cry.  He was supposed to get angry or snap back some how.  Hayden's face was so used to smugness and jubilation that he seemed an entirely different person when his face was filled with tears.  It was kind of gross.  He wasn’t a pretty crier.  

"No." He almost cooed, but Hayden wouldn't meet his gaze, too busy trying to muster up another smile.  "It's just..." Connor felt as if he needed to say something, but didn't know what.

Hayden threw his head back, as if gasping for air, and his cheek muscles forced backwards into a huge smile, which he cast at the ceiling before speaking.

"Haha, no but it's true."  His voice cracked "I mean, no one decent is gonna say it out loud but it's true.  Everything would be better for everyone if I just wasn't here."  He splayed his hands out in front of him, gesturing more to the ceiling than to Connor.

"Stop it.  Stop saying that."  Connor muttered.

"Why?" Hayden had now slid into a laying down position, with his knees draped over one armrest and his shoulders resting on another.  He turned his head to address Connor directly. "You know you don't have to lie to me, right?  I know you wish I had never shown up here!  I'm not stupid!  I mean, I am kind of stupid but I'm not that stupid."

"Hay-"

"And you know what?" Hayden continued "I know I'm in here right now, spilling my pathetic guts all over you, and you're trying to say nice stuff, but that's just because you feel like you have to.  If I made it over the fence tonight and nobody ever heard from me again you know it would be a blessing on the graveyard.  Scratch that, a blessing on the earth!  And even if someone did feel bad about it," Hayden nearly whispered, now more serious than he had been all night "in the end it would all turn out a whole lot better for them, for everyone."

Connor buried his head in his hands.

"Why...why the hell would you think that?"  Connor murmured.

Hayden shrugged.

"Jack and Bianca Upchurch seem to think so.  And my subordinates..." He laughed "I still can't believe you gave me that job.  I don't know a thing about computers."

Connor stood up.  

"Come sit with me."  He said, sternly, as he loosely took Hayden's wrist and lead him to the bed.

They slumped against each other, leaning against the headboard for a while.  Connor had his arm around Hayden's shoulders.  Neither of them said anything.  The moment was long drawn out.  Connor focused on Hayden's ragged breathing while Hayden tried to steady it.  He rested his head on Connor's shoulder and gripped his hand tightly, twisting his fingers into painful contortions around Connor's own.

Connor couldn't think of what to say.  He couldn't think at all, but after a while he knew that he had to say something - had to do something, or else Hayden may leave his life permanently.  

"I didn't give you that job because you know about computers, I made you head of communications because you're a hell of a lot smarter than people think you are.  I mean it's like, there's knowing things and then there's knowing things, you know?"  Connor broke the silence, causing Hayden to twitch slightly in surprise.

Hayden laughed.

"What exactly are you smoking?" Hayden joked, now that he had relaxed more.

Connor sighed.

"I'm setting up a team."

"A team?"

"Yeah, a team."

"What like a softball team?"  Hayden scoffed.

"No." Connor shook his head, "I'm just-I'm just tired of sitting by and doing nothing while kids are being unwound left and right, you know?"

Hayden sat up and looked at Connor.

"Who said you're doing nothing?  You're Connor Lassiter for Christ's sake!  If anyone is doing anything to combat unwinding it's you."  He smirked.  

"Still," Connor sighed "I don't feel like I'm doing enough.  I want to be more involved, if only to feel like I'm actually doing something."

"So," Hayden raised an eyebrow, "What are you gonna do about it with your little team?"

"I want to find out which kids nearby are scheduled to be unwound and get to them before the juvie cops do."  Connor stated sternly.

"Sounds noble enough." Hayden nodded his head, "Why are you telling me about it?"

"Because I want you to be a part of it."

Hayden gave him an uneasy look.

"You sure?  Because personally, I'd advise against it."  

Connor nodded.

"No, it has to be you.  You're good under pressure, almost too good.  You think well and fast, and you're a fantastic liar.  Most importantly though, I trust you.  You're just about one of the only people I can trust anymore."  Connor explained.

Hayden said nothing, and looked away.

"Listen," Connor gripped Hayden tighter,  "I need you to stick around. I need you - look at me - I need you."  Connor hissed.

After some hesitation Hayden spoke again.

"Are you sure?  Are you sure? Because if you're not, if you're just doing this to try to make me feel better, you will be disappointed.  I will disappoint you."

Connor shook his head.

"This is entirely my choice, and there is nothing you could do to disappoint me."

Hayden shrugged.

"Whatever, it's your funeral."

Hayden started to get up, and shook Connor's hand off when he tried to pull him down again.

"I'm going to bed." He mumbled.  

"Hey," said Connor, as he stood up to level his eyes with Hayden's, "You'll stick around, right?  Because, it really would kill me if something happened to you...especially of you did it to yourself."  Connor said so softly it was almost a whisper.

Hayden nodded his head and quickly said "Yeah, yeah I'll stick around.  Just uh...don't tell Ashley or anything, that girl annoys the crap out of me.  Just talking to her makes me wanna shoot myself."

Connor laughed and nodded in agreement, "but seriously," he added "if you ever feel like...like you wanna try that again, please don't.  Please come to me or...or Risa or someone please don't do it."

Hayden nodded dismissively.

Before he left Connor remembered something.

"Hey, and how did you get the bottles?  And why were those guards so determined not to tell me who you were?"

Hayden gave a bark of laughter.

"Didn't you just say I'm smarter than people think?"  He said cryptically, before hopping out the door.

The next day Hayden reported in an hour late to work.  Connor slept late as well.  When they met again in the middle of the day Connor tried to give Hayden a meaningful look, which he failed to return.


End file.
